Will Markell, a happy-go-lucky, careless sort of a fellow, arrives home about 2 a. m. in a half intoxicated condition, throwing a pack of cards and some dice on the library table. His brother, Ed, has been waiting for him and tells him he had better go West and try to make a man of himself. Ed, a studious, ambitious fellow, is working on a safety bank vault door device. Will in the West has used up his money and as a last chance tries his luck with his last few coins in a crap game and loses all. He receives a letter from his mother, telling him of Ed’s final success with his patent. Will decides to return home and feign blindness, to learn of the mechanism of Ed’s safety device. The installation of the device is made, the president, cashier and board of directors being present, also Mrs. Markell and her two sons, Ed and Will, the latter, everyone believing to be blind. Mason, Ed’s private secretary, the only person that he has trusted with his plans, takes them from the safe to refer to them. This Ed learns through his stenographer. A month later, Ed, Will and their mother are seated at breakfast when Ed is notified by telephone that there has been an attempted robbery at the bank, the burglars being partially successful in opening the vault. Ed immediately suspects Mason, who is discharged. Ed is requested to try to effect a more complete safety device. This he does, after hours of work, but drops into a dose about midnight. Will enters from the garden through the French windows and still feigning blindness, convinces himself that Ed is asleep and sees and learns of the complete mechanism of the safety device. The next night Will enters with a skeleton key. The bank watchman is napping. Will approaches the vault. Quietly but quickly he opens the outer vault door and is about to open the second steel bar door to which is attached the safety device when “nature intervenes” and Will is actually stricken blind. Strain on the optic nerve through feigning blindness has been too great. He unknowingly grasps the safety device. The police officers are summoned through it, but he finds his way home before they arrive. They follow in his footsteps immediately. He enters the same French windows, staggers, actually falling over the library table, the same one that he had previously always seen, but apparently did not see. The noise summons his brother. The officers enter and are about to take him away, when their mother coming downstairs is stopped by Ed. He draws the portieres covering Will’s fate from her view. The officers take Will, he pleading with Ed, “For God’s sake, do not tell mother!” And their mother never knew!